It's an Exciting World

Thanksgiving Feast with the Lees

We got up in the morning to cook some food for Thanksgiving dinner. We decided on Tom Yom and cheese, but the cheese didn’t turn out. The Tom Yom was a big hit, and we got request to bring more of the soup. I also donated my remaining abalone to the dinner, and Russel cooked it up nicely. There was a lot of typical Chinese food like friend rice, mustard green, and spring rolls, but there was a turkey as well. After dinner we played some of the games I have been making and that went over really well.

November 29, 2013 0

The Great Ideas of Philosophy

This was a very nice listen, but I had to take it in chunks. The fiction books that I listened too at the same time were very nice breaks from the depth and density of this lecture series. The evolution of philosophy as described by this book seems to be full of reactionary thought, with the swings getting wider and wider. I can identify most with the Aristotelian thought with everything being in the pursuit of Eudaimonia, which can be roughly thought of as happiness or well-being in a totally non-hedonistic sense. I would put this as the basis of my thoughts in a utilitarian framework with a hierarchical anthropomorphic view of all life based on level of consciousness and sense. I fully reject some of the later discussed views like reality being perception. These views are wholly unusable for working life, and aren’t even practiced by the people that support them. I very much hold that a philosophical position should be practiced by those that hold it and not just held in theory. There is a funny story of an ancient Greek person (reality unknown) who believed and practiced in the thought being reality school, and his friends would have to constantly save him from being injured by these notions. He would do things like believe that fire wasn’t hot and try to walk through it. Even he didn’t fully follow this thought as he blamed his cook for making a bad meal; wouldn’t it only be bad because he thought it was so in his own philosophy? I liked the thoughts presented here and can use the language to flush out my own ideas further, and discover what great people have thought before on the subjects.

Audible Link

November 27, 2013 0

The Colour of Magic

This was a very enjoyable and incredibly silly book. The absurdity of Diskworld will be a good reprieve whenever I get too into the long philosophical works. The story was quite nice, with a lot of meta story to go along with it. I will have to read a few more of his books on Diskworld.

Audible Link

November 27, 2013 0

The Ringworld Throne

This book was very nice, and got a lot more into protectors. I liked the plot of the second one better, but this one was still very nice. There was a huge emphasis on sex again, but I was able to tease out what he was getting at with it. Since all the hominids on the Ringworld practice sex, but in different ways, the species can use it as a bonding exercise without it being a competition for procreation. All other activities will be some kind of competition, but the sex part of it isn’t. This wasn’t clear in the previous two, as there wasn’t as strong a focus on why they shouldn’t mate with their own species. The city builders mention it, but it wasn’t as much a focus.

Audible Link

November 26, 2013 0

Goblins Inc.

Steph, Tina, Amit and I played a round of Goblins Inc. last night. The game itself was interesting and I really like the systems involved. There was one big failing of the game that Amit pointed out, and that was the extreme limitation that the games puts on table talk. That limitation doesn’t allow for an enjoyable social experience when playing. If you are playing just for the game it is a good game, but if you are playing to have a fun time with friends it isn’t the best thing to go for. I’m not sure if it would play decently with table talk allowed since so much of it relies on secrecy. There could be an interesting meta game or there could be a complete failure of some of the important mechanics if too much information is shared.

BGG Link

November 25, 2013 0

Biking to Catching Fire

I decided to bike over to meet with Steph, Nick, and Andrew at the AMC 20. It was about a 1.5 hour bike ride, and since half of the trail was unpaved, it took me a bit longer than I thought it would. I had a really great time on the ride since I was listening to audiobooks and the weather was perfect. I should bike without a backpack more often. I got there just in time, and the theater wasn’t that packed so we got pretty good seats.

I thought the movie pacing was both too fast and too slow. There were parts that didn’t seem to give it any good story, but increased the drama that I could have done without. There were also lots of scenes that were there just to be flashy, which was nice on the big screen, but made some of the more important points from the book not make it in. I haven’ t read the books, but I listened to some of the comments about the choice of what went in and what didn’t and I was surprised a good bit. I am going to have to read the books now.

November 25, 2013 0

The Ringworld Engineers

This book I liked more than the first since it gave more information on the history and physics of the Ringworld. It also explored the larger Ringworld universe a bit more, which was nice to hear about. I was surprised at they way they killed off a few of the characters and the huge focus on sex. I was surprised at the way the book started and the way the Puppeteer was handled in the book. It didn’t seem at all consistent with the way a puppeteer would act given the aversion to danger. The ethics of the books was interesting as well but only minimally so.

Audible Link

November 25, 2013 0

Ringworld

This was a very interesting book, and I especially like the mystery that they have around the Ringworld. The approach of not having an advanced race still living on the advanced world I found to be what build up the mystery the most. I like how the local lore and religions around the creators was built up, with a secondary race coming in to claim the Ringworld later. The concept of Teela being bread for Luck seemed a little far fetched, but it made for an amusing plot device. It reminded me a lot of Matt from Wheel of Time, such that if he was in a tough spot there would be a random occurrence which would give him exactly what was needed, for him or for the better of everyone. I found the Kzin character to be a little underwhelming, and I was surprised his advantages weren’t used more. The Puppetiers were also an interesting race, and I was surprised at the way they handled things. There were some parts that they did things that wouldn’t be the safest thing to do, like every having the outsiders land on their home world, or go there.

Audible Link

November 25, 2013 0

New Era

I played a few rounds of New Era with Nick and Steph. Nick left and then Steph did some quick heads up play. I won all the games, and by a large margin. I got some really good cards to start out and it worked especially well with the groups I got. I also think that I was trying to build points early one, so that the others would have arguably better resource engines, but I had the best point engines. This made a big difference since the game is usually only 4 to 5 rounds long. The engines don’t last all that long, so building points early and setting up to make points is much more important than big engines.

November 25, 2013 0